The Dragon's Children
by Sei Cat
Summary: A Hero's work is never done. Now Van discovers that the people he thought he'd lost aren't so lost after all . . .


The Dragon's Children  
  
By Sei Cat  
  
Van Fanel heard the creak and grind of his own shoulders as he swung his arms in slow arcs in an attempt to ease his stiff muscles. Sweat beaded on his brow and rolled into his eyes only to be flung away by a quick shake of his head. It had been a long day. A long day and a long 2 years of rebuilding. Had it really been that long? He threw himself down in the grass beside the lake behind Fanelia's palace . . . his palace and his home. It was nearly complete. Van had insisted on rebuilding his country first. His palace could wait until they had the means to reconstruct such a large building. It was more important to get the people of Fanelia back in good solid homes and shops and ready to take up their trades again. But the people, his people Van reminded himself, had been up to the challenge and had taken to rebuilding as fast as hands and tools and what little money they had could go. And so the Palace was well on it's way to completion ahead of schedule and far ahead of anyone's expectations. In fact, the residential quarters were complete and furnished as were some of the other necessary wings like the kitchens and the bathhouse. Mostly it was the throne and receiving rooms that needed completion Namely: They lacked a roof.  
  
The sun was going down over the mountains and first tug of the evening breeze cooled him and dried the sweat on his brow. It was quiet and peaceful here and Van closed his eyes to let his mind slip onto the familiar path that carried him up and up past the tops of the trees and even the peak of the mountain. Up through clouds and into the thinnest air and up to the bright full moon that glowed softly down on Gaea even in the sun-drenched afternoon.  
  
"I'm all right, Van. I'm doing all right."  
  
It was more a feeling than actual words. But with this soft touch Van was content. He rested quietly in her thoughts sharing his peace and affection with one he had not seen in so long.  
  
"I miss you, too . . ." Van relaxed into the sweet green grass and tried to think words at Hitomi but soon gave it up in favor of just being with her. She had always been better at this sort of thing though she insisted that all he needed was practice. He would rather take this time they had together simply being.  
  
"Van!" Hitomi's mind voice rang with surprise and Van instinctively opened his eye's to search for danger. He saw nothing out of the ordinary but Hitomi's agitation rendered coherent communication impossible. Then he saw it. A pillar of light dropped from the sky nearly at his feet while Hitomi's pendent threatened to blind him from below with an answering glow. A figure fell down through the column, white wings spread and eye's clenched shut. Her long black hair flared out behind her like a cloak while her hands were clasped before her as if in prayer.  
  
"M-mother . . . ?" was all Van had time to say before the figure tumbled down on top of him in a tangle of limbs.  
  
"Ow!! Crap that hurt." The girl sat up to rub her skinned elbow and blow grass stems out of her face.  
  
"You are NOT my mother." Van groaned from his ignoble position as the girl's seat cushion. She immediately sprang up and blinked at him with eye's the same warm brown as Varie's had been."  
  
"Who's your mother? I'm not your mother! I think I would remember that . . . where am I? Is this Atlantis? I thought it would be more . . . I don't know . . .finished I guess . . . " Her eyes swept over the cured timbers and waiting shingles piled haphazardly against the outer wall.  
  
"It looks better from the front." Van felt an irrational need to defend his home and hard work. And being sat on did nothing for his temperament.  
  
"Who are you?" He asked sitting up gingerly and assessing his post- flattened condition.  
  
"Oh, sorry!! I'm Victoria Walton. But call me Tori. Ummm . . . and you are . . . ?"  
  
After dragging himself back into a sitting position Van turned to look at this new visitor only to become entranced with something just over Tori's left shoulder and about where her wings would be visible . . . if they had still been there.  
  
"Ummm . . . hello?" The girl waved a hand in front of his face hoping for some kind of response. He looked at her with a puzzled frown.  
  
"Where are they?"  
  
"Where are what?" Tori blinked innocent brown eyes at him and Van began to wonder if he had imagined the wings.  
  
"You're wings . . . I thought . . ." Van turned to look around him as if the wings were hiding just out of his line of sight. It was then he noticed the quiet rain of soft white feathers.  
  
"Ummm . . . oops . . .darn pigeons . . ." Tori chuckled uncertainly and cleared her throat. Without thinking, Van quickly stretched out his hand to get a better look at her back. He was hoping for some shred of evidence and missed the girl's growled warning. Placing his hand on her shoulder was the last thing he remembered.  
  
Van Fanel woke with a bruised jaw. He was sprawled once again in the grass beside the lake. The sun wasn't much lower than it had been so he probably hadn't been missed yet. And the pillar probably faded back into pink tinged sky enough that the casual observer would probably miss it. It also meant no one would come running any time soon. A casual glance showed him that the girl, Tori, was only a few feet away inspecting the shrine beneath the large tree at the end of the clearing. She stood before the stone with her hands raised near but not quit touching the stone. Here eyes were half closed in concentration but she turned quickly enough when she heard Van approach.  
  
"You. What was that for?" Van rubbed his jaw and glared at the girl, his previous peaceful mood shattered. She turned to face him, casually keeping a carefully measured distance between them. He was perversely satisfied to see her rub the red, slightly swollen knuckles of her right hand absently.  
  
"Sorry, a girl can't be too careful these days." She didn't look sorry in the least. She looked wary and maybe a little frightened. "You don't seem to be too concerned about having a stranger fall down out of the sky on you . . ."  
  
"It happens a lot . . . I've done it myself, actually."  
  
"Oh?" The girl gave him a good long look before turning back to the shrine. She still kept an eye on him and refused to turn her back on him no matter how hard he maneuvered. He wasn't even sure what he hoped to find. A pair of emerging wings had obviously not recently ripped her shirt and the girl wasn't forthcoming with any new information.  
  
"Why are you here?" He finally ventured. It was probably the most sensible question out of the 300 hundred others running through his head.  
  
"Umm . . . where's "here" exactly?" She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Van was surprised at how desperate her eyes looked for that brief second.  
  
"Fanelia." He said finally having noted her lack of response to his question. "On Gaea . . ." He added as an afterthought.  
  
"WHERE!?!" She rounded on him and he took an involuntary step back.  
  
"You come from Earth. What we call the Mystic Moon . . ." He raised his hand and pointed up as she numbly followed his motion with her eyes.  
  
Tori looked up and up until she saw it. It was like seeing the pictures from the space shuttle's moon mission in the local observatory. There was the earth in all it's radiant glory. Her hand went involuntarily to the pendent hiding beneath the collar of her shirt. Her knees gave way and she sank slowly and awkwardly to the ground. "I am SO not in Kansas anymore" was her first irreverent thought. "How the hell am I supposed to get home?" was her second. The boy made a move toward her again and she leaned back, once more on guard. He stopped halfway bent over with his fingers inches away from her collar. A red, drop shaped pendent dangled from his neck. A pendent shaped and colored exactly like the one buried beneath her collar.  
  
"AAHH!!" She said intelligently and pointed wildly at his neck. He flinched a little in surprise then narrowed his eyes and carefully pulled at the chain around Tori's neck. Tori was too surprised to move or even articulate coherently. The boy studied the pendent in his hand as Tori bit her lip.  
  
"Where did you get this?" He asked.  
  
"It's mine!" Tori shouted with more force than she intended. The last half hour had been a bit of a trial for her. The boy looked up at her curiously and she tried hard to swallow the tears that threatened roll down her cheeks.  
  
"I . . . I want to go home!" To the boy's obvious alarm Tori burst into tears. He dropped the pendent like it was on fire and jumped back a safe distance. Tori just hugged her knees to her chest and dropped her head down on top of them sobbing like she was 5 years old and it was her first day of school.  
  
"Are all girls from the Mystic Moon this . . . weepy?" Tori glared at him over her kneecaps and sniffed loudly but before she could formulate a scathing reply they were interrupted . . . by something . . .  
  
"VAN-SAMAAAAA!!!!!" The animal? Girl? Baby Egyptian Icon? rounded the pond and threw herself at the boy's back. Only then did it see Tori crouched before him.  
  
"What's that?" It asked narrowing eyes at Tori like the human were some kind of lab animal. Tori bristled and glared right back over the tops of her knees.  
  
"She's from the Mystic Moon."  
  
"Another one!! Wasn't one enough?" The creature slid off of the boy's shoulders to sniff at Tori but jumped back when the girl sat up in surprise.  
  
"Another one? Someone else has been here? When? Where?" Tori stumbled to her feet only to trip and redeposit her rump in the soil.  
  
"Didn't I already tell you that?" The boy asked with a slightly bemused expression on his face.  
  
"I thought you were kidding . . ." Tori's day was not getting any better. I will not yell, I will not kill . . . I may yet maim . . . She took a deep breath and blew her bangs out of her face. The baby Bast was staring at her with wide blue eyes.  
  
"Majesty . . . ?"  
  
"Who?" Tori gave up on standing and simply folded her legs beneath her.  
  
"It's not, Merle."  
  
The catling turned to the boy.  
  
"But Van-Sama!"  
  
"Leave it, Merle . . . "  
  
Van absently rubbed his jaw as he tried to decide what needed to be done with this new foundling until Merle pushed her way into his line of sight.  
  
"Van-sama . . .?"  
  
"Eh?" He blinked at her  
  
"What happened to your face?"  
  
"Eh? Nothing . . ." He dropped his hand from his face as Merle growled and glared suspiciously at Tori who, surprisingly, growled back.  
  
"Van . . . My name is Van" He said more to forestall the eminent catfight than make a belated stab at diplomacy. "And this is Merle."  
  
"And would that be Van, James Van?" Tori gave him a wry look  
  
"Umm . . ."  
  
"Never mind . . ." Tori stood up and dusted off her knees. She was tall for a girl. The top of her head was only an inch or so shorter than Van's. "I am obviously I the wrong place and I really need to be heading back." The girl bit her lip and looked up at the blue earth. "Ummm . . . got any tips for a return trip?"  
  
Van smiled.  
  
"Fly." He said.  
  
"What?!" Tori spun around to stare at him but Van only shrugged and pretended indifference while he watched her carefully through a lock of shaggy hair. She looked once more at her home world and then back at Van. Van waited. He was ready for anything the girl might do . . .  
  
Almost . . .  
  
With a scream that would deafen the rocks and wake the dead, Tori pointed frantically at something behind Van who, of course, turned to look . . . Just as Tori launched herself, wings spread, up into the sky. Van spared only a half second of regret for the damage he was about to inflict on his wardrobe . . .  
  
  
  
"I can't believe he fell for that!" Tori said out loud as her wings pulled hard against the clear evening air and the cat-girls shrieks dwindled with distance.  
  
"The people of Fanelia fight with more honor!" Said a voice from just below. Tori banked sharply to the right and felt the light brush of Van's missed grab. She dared to glance beneath her and caught a glimpse of him banking in to follow in her slipstream where he could work half as hard as she and still gain on her. He has wings . . . A dim part of her brain whispered below the rush of the wind and the sound of her own heart beating. Home! I have to get home! Screamed the rest of her brain. The wind in Tori's face forced tears from eyes she refused to close. She was afraid her world would vanish if she so much as blinked. Instead she pulled her wings even harder through the sky to gain speed and altitude banking suddenly one way and then another in a reflexive attempt to loose Van but always fighting to get higher with the words: Home! I want to go back HOME! as her ever present mantra.  
  
And two stones around two different necks began to glow.  
  
It happened all at once: Tori felt Van's iron grip on her ankle just as the pillar of light caught up to them. For one lightheaded moment she couldn't tell if she were falling or flying . . . and that was the last thought she had before the blackness closed her in.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
1) Van "Slanzar" de Fanel . . . what a truly horrible name. I choose to ignore it. I love active ignorance.  
  
2) VAAAANNN-SAMAAAAAAAA!!!!  
  
LOOORRRRRD VAAAAAANNNN!!!  
  
They just don't sound the same!!!  
  
3) What on earth WOULD Merle call Van's mother?  
  
4) Point of view? Why must I have only one? ^_^  
  
5) I had the hardest time deciding what to do about the dialogue. Van just doesn't sound like Van unless he's speaking in Japanese. My solution: Think the words in Japanese and write them in English (Of course, now my brain is ready to explode!! Good thing Van is a man of few words. Ah, the little Neanderthal!!) 


End file.
